The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Echinacea plant, botanically known as Echinacea tennesseensis×(Echinacea purpurea×Echinacea paradoxa) and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Solar Flare’.
The new Echinacea is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Dahlonega, Ga. The objective of the breeding program is to create new hardy and vigorous Echinacea plants with unique and attractive ray and disc floret coloration.
The new Echinacea plant originated from a cross-pollination during the summer of 2007 of an unnamed selection of Echinacea tennesseensis, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with Echinacea purpurea×Echinacea paradoxa ‘Emily Saul’, disclosed in U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,768, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Echinacea plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a single flowering plant from within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination grown in a controlled environment in Dahlonega, Ga. during the spring of 2008.
Asexual reproduction of the new Echinacea plant by tissue culture in a controlled environment in Alpharetta, Ga. since the spring of 2009 has shown that the unique features of this new Echinacea plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.